House Of Heroes

At Sportsfest, Fans Not Only See The Superstars, They Get To Play With Them

September 29, 1991|By Paul Galloway.

Last Wednesday, for a $15 entrance fee to an exhibition hall in west suburban Villa Park, you could have received a handshake and an autograph from and posed for a photograph with, among others:

- Six Chicago Bears, including Jim Harbaugh.

- Hockey great Bobby Hull.

- Three stars of the ill-fated `69 Chicago Cubs, two of them members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

FOR THE RECORD - Additional material published Oct. 1, 1991:Corrections and clarifications.In an article in the Sept. 29 Tempo section about Sportsfest, a week-long showcase of present and former professional athletes, the last name of producer Joe Cantafio was misspelled. The Tribune regrets the error.

- Chicago Bulls rookie Mark Randall.

- Professional wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage.

- Bodybuilder Pete Miller, last year`s Mr. America.

- Former heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks.

- The Los Angeles Laker Girls.

- The San Diego Chicken.

This quirky conglomeration represented the lineup for only one night of a week-long exercise in hero worship and signature gathering called Sportsfest. The event, which opened Monday, has offered (and will continue to offer until 10 p.m. Sunday) access to numerous present and former professional athletes and to satellite attractions of the sports world, such as the Laker Girls, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and the well-traveled mascot in the rooster suit, mentioned last in the list above.

Anthropologists and students of American popular culture who don`t know a strong safety from a safety squeeze would find Sportsfest an edifying specimen of this country`s fascination with sports and sports celebrities.

Its organizers say an extravaganza like this has never been attempted, and people who pay attention to these things don`t disagree.

In a couple of respects, it`s a sports memorabilia show on steroids.

Most memorabilia shows are held on weekends and seldom headline more than three or four sports figures, but Sportsfest goes for seven days and has promised appearances by slightly more than 100 jocks.

Cancellations may reduce the final number by a dozen or so, but there would seem to be enough Legends of the Locker Rooms available over seven days to satisfy all but the most insatiable sports addicts.

Sportsfest, however, departs from mainstream sports memorabilia shows by not inviting dealers to display and sell their wares: bats, balls, photos, hockey sticks, pucks, baseball cards, old World Series tickets, etc.

If their ambitious, high-risk experiment succeeds, which is to say if they sell enough tickets to pay their expensive roster of sports stars

(estimated at $350,000) and meet other, lesser costs, the organizers want Sportsfest to become an annual occasion in the Chicago area and to take it to other cities as well.

And if it doesn`t, well, it`s like sports: You win some, you lose some, and some concepts are rained out-or at least are all wet.

The following entries from the notebook of a reporter who attended a few sessions of Sportsfest may contain intimations of its fate.

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The site is the 100,000-square-foot Odeum Sports and Expo Center, a former ice-skating rink at 1033 Villa Ave., Villa Park, 20 miles from the Loop.

To herald Sportsfest, giant, air-filled replicas of a football, basketball, baseball and golf ball are attached to the roof at the entrance. Not to be picky, but all the balls are the same size.

- - -

Inside the Odeum are two huge, hangar-like rooms, each about the size of a high-school gymnasium. The football and baseball players sit at tables and sign autographs in one of the big rooms.

The second big room contains the Main Stage, where the cheerleaders and music groups such as the Buckinghams and the Mellow Fellows perform, and the Superstar Stage, where the best-known national figures-Whitey Ford, Ferguson Jenkins, Franco Harris and, yes, Macho Man Randy Savage-sit and dispense signatures. A passageway connects the two big rooms. Above it is an upper level where the basketball and hockey players sit and sign.

- - -

The male security guards wear striped, white-and-black referee shirts and dark trousers. On Monday afternoon, one speaks into his walkie-talkie: ``I`m trying to get Gale Sayers out of the golf area.``

The Bear immortal is scheduled to be first on the Superstar Stage. But he`s with golf pro Bob Mallek, who`s looking at Sayers` backswing on stop-action videotape. Mallek tells Sayers he`s doing something wrong with his shoulders.

- - -

The starting lineup for Monday`s opening afternoon session:

At the baseball table are former Cubs Andy Pafko, Larry Biittner and Paul Popovich. Later in the week out-of-towners Hank Aaron, Willie Stargell and Brooks Robinson are scheduled. Whitey Ford comes in Monday night.

At the basketball table is Ray Meyer, former De Paul coach and Notre Dame star. Former Bulls player Norm Van Lier is scheduled for the night session.

The football table has former Bears Allan Ellis and Willie Holman and Chicagoan Johnny Lattner, the Heisman Trophy winner from Notre Dame.

On deck for tonight are Jay Berwanger, who won the first Heisman Trophy at the University of Chicago in 1935, and former Bears George Connor and Ronnie Bull.

Former Blackhawk Cliff Koroll is at the hockey table. Tonight, another former Blackhawks star, Stan Mikita.